Now we got a working method for rooting the FireTV with FireOS 5.0.5 and although I do not recommend it, for sake of informing you, I am exposing it in here: Fire OS 5.0.5 is the latest tailored Android OS -at the time of this writing- for both the Stick and box first version of FireTV and includes an exploitable bug which a Chinese rooting tool called KingRoot seems to manage quite well. You’ll need to download or sideload and run the KingRoot APK into your fireTV. This KingRoot tool seems to reportedly be the best “stand alone” rooting tool for almost any Android device. Rooting your FireTV...

Recently, user rbox at the XDA Developers community, managed to create a custom recovery tool, based on TWRP recovery for the FireTV 2nd Generation. He publicly posted scripts, binaries and instructions, se everyone can replicate his rooting and custom recovery installation experience on their FireTV 2nd generation. You can read and comment on his brilliant work in first hand by following this link. A word of caution: We assume this is a dynamic situation and although at the time of this tutorial the procedure is successfully performed on Version 5.0.4 or later of FireOS, this may change in the future. Once in place, this custom recovery tool will allow you to easily install any future pre-rooted Android OS...

It may come as an unpleasant surprise to learn that the FireTV Stick suffers from heat problems. What is even worse: this is not a new problem for these kind of android devices: The Chinese companies producing Android USB and HDMI Sticks got to discover, tackle and solve the heating problem in their early production stage, we are talking about years 2011-2012 here. Hence, it is quite unbelievable that almost two years after the Android HDMI sticks market has been rolling forward, Amazon jumps into this market niche introducing an -essentially flawed- plastic case design. So, last night We had a pizza and TV meeting at a friend’s...

You will need to install the FireStarter apps launcher on your FireTV if you need an alternate homescreen with the apps you use most, instead of the standard Amazon‘s homescreen. The main problem with default Amazon’s homescreen, besides the fact that it is full of Vendor’s related stuff, is it’s unfriendliness with third party apps: You have no way to promote your recently installed (probably by sideloading or from an external source as depicted in this tutorial) Kodi mediaplayer or any other non officially sanctioned app. Hence, normally you would need to navigate into Settings, Apps, list all apps,...

The new 2015 Fire TV, launched on October 2015 on amazon.com and in selected stores (i.e. Bestbuy.com) is quite a hardware upgrade, compared with the original Fire TV: A dedicated graphics co-processor and a central processor with 75% performance increase, a new remote controller (which uses WIFI signals instead of Bluetooth), and a MicroSD slot for Flash Ram expansion. The best hardware upgrade, I saved it for last: 4K video playback support. On the Fire TV stick side, the offer is less spectacular, but includes new bundles and remote controller as well. The important thing is that Kodi and most other...